


Tempting Sight

by Lost_Elf



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Abusive Handsome Jack, Abusive Relationships, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Descent into Madness, Domestic Violence, Eye Trauma, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Not Beta Read, Overprotective, Paranoia, Poor Rhys (Borderlands), Possessive Behavior, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:07:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29288799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lost_Elf/pseuds/Lost_Elf
Summary: Tagging is damn hard on mobile. This is a fic that indulges my eye trauma needs. Mindless whump.
Relationships: Handsome Jack/Rhys (Borderlands)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	Tempting Sight

**Author's Note:**

> Found this WIP from July last year and decided to finish it. Dead Dove, self-indulgent.

“Shh, shh, shhh, Kitten. It’s alright. Daddy’s not really angry.”

No amount of soothing helps Rhys calm down, but he does his best to stifle any sob or whimper trying to escape his mouth. He doesn’t move, not even an inch. He even controls the movement of his chest as he breathes, keeps it to bare minimum. But Jack is angry, and it is too late. Even if Rhys doesn’t show how upset he is, Jack won’t simmer down.

He _wasn’t_ trying to run. Why would he do that? There is no escape, and any attempt would only anger Jack. No, he just wanted to stretch his legs a little. He had been less tired today than he usually is, and walking felt good. _Empowering._ He could choose the direction of each step, have an ounce of control over his life.

The captive man only made it to the kitchen before his _boyfriend,_ his captor stormed into the penthouse and started screaming at him. He knows that it is bad when he is dragged to the _white room._ He is so frightened he can’t speak at that point. Just trembling and standing in place until Jack hits him hard in the face, sending him tumbling to the floor, probably thinking that the younger man is scared because of being actually guilty and not because of the terrible things that this room promises to him.

Rhys only got a few words out since Jack came home. Jack probably didn’t hear a single one of them, anyway. After he helps Rhys get up from the ground, his rage cools down a notch, but a different mood sets in.

There is a chair in the middle of the white room. It has five leather straps, padded on the inside and soft but unbreakable. One wraps firmly around Rhys’ left wrist, strong enough to keep his arm in place but not enough to hide his trembles. Two straps are there for his legs, not that he has enough strength in himself to kick on a good day. One wide strap goes over his chest, with extra padding over the stump where his arm used to be, and at last, one extremely soft strap wraps around his neck. His collar is taken off for that, and that is _bad._ Jack changes when the yellow and black band is off, as if his claim on the younger man were suddenly invalidated.

“What were you doing in the kitchen?” the CEO asks, voice hard. He is doing something out of the line of Rhys’ sight. It cannot be anything good.

It takes him precious seconds to answer. Rhys stutters, finds it hard to make a sound. “J-just wa-wa-walking,” he says. Jack will stop asking questions when he is ready to bring the punishment upon Rhys, so he should probably say more, at least _try_ to bring some reason, explain. But they are already in the white room; even if he weren’t frightened out of his mind, it’s probably too late for him anyway.

“Why?” Jack asks next, voice saccharine sweet now, which is even worse.

“I, I w-wanted, t-to see, a-and m-move…” Rhys’ words don’t even make sense to his own ears, but it’s not like he gets to use them often anymore, and he is— Oh God, he completely forgot about his breathing and nervous fidgeting, and the chair rattles every time he moves. He panics even more.

“See what; move where?” Jack asks, pushing a steel trolley with something that clangs and clatters closer to the chair.

“M-move myself,” Rhys says, almost too quiet now as fear chokes him. “I-I wa-wanted to, to see sss— some-something diff-different than, than the, the be-bedroom. _Just the rest of the house, I swear!_ ” He screams the last sentence in high-pitched voice when Jack makes a fast movement, but it is only to cup his face gently.

“Shh, shh, it’s alright,” the older man soothes again. At that, Rhys begins to sob and cry openly, because there is no point pretending that he is in a happy place now. He is being punished either way. He feels like he is trembling so hard only the leather straps stop him from shattering into billion pieces.

“I understand,” Jack says softly, keeping one hand on his cheek and carding the other through his hair. “Seeing the same four walls all the time gets maddening. You wanted to see something else for once,” he says, stunning Rhys with how right he is, “and you chose the stupidest room for your little adventure. That’s fine, I understand. I will help you with that.” He doesn’t give the younger man enough time to process his sinister words.

One of Jack’s hands leaves his face to pick up something from the tray. A long, unhuman wail leaves Rhys throat when he recognises it, and he’s wasting the rest of his time that he has left to defend himself on crying pathetically. The needle pierces the skin of his neck, releasing a big dose of anaesthetic. It doesn’t hurt, not much. But Rhys knows what it is, what is coming. It went exactly like this when Jack took his ECHOeye away, and when he took his arm away, when he blunted the sharp edges of Rhys’ teeth, when took out the four teeth from the back of his mouth, and any other time Rhys was in the white room. Another syringe is picked up, meaning that Jack is not _that angry._ The first one paralyses Rhys, the second one removes the pain. Whatever Jack does, he won’t feel the torture.

Then Jack is bringing a sterile pad with disinfectant to his face. A sound of fear dies on its way out of Rhys’ throat as his muscles continue to relax against his will. The skin around his eye is cleaned, and Jack pushes the second needle into the soft spot above his eye, a bit of liquid is pushed out, then it pulls back. It enters not far from the first spot, the process repeating until Jack makes a full circle of little pinpricks around the eye. Rhys’ right eye. His _only_ eye.

“This will help you with the problem, Rhysie,” Jack murmurs sweetly as he waits for the anaesthetic to work. “You know you shouldn’t wander into dangerous places. You won’t want to wander anywhere after I do this. It won’t even hurt, I promise.”

Jack is right. Even as he panics, Rhys’ face grows numb. Gradually, he doesn’t even feel the hand on his jaw or the strap around his neck. The drug is potent. All is lost.

His thinking slows down, sight grows unfocused. Rhys tries to find the terror deep in his core, to have something to fuel his thoughts, to power his body, but it is distant and not enough. Removed from his own body, he watches a metallic object move closer to his eye, Jack’s hand clad in a white latex glove hiding the rest of the white room from him, and then suddenly, there is darkness.

Just like that. He didn’t feel the knife burying into his eye, or the twisting and wiggling movements Jack has to make to remove the remnants of it and cut all the nerves and muscles. He doesn’t see the mutilated eye fall into his lap. He doesn’t _see._

“Now, that’s better,” Jack murmurs when he is done removing matter from the empty eye socket, the sound of his voice coming from far away. “You will feel better tomorrow. You will be safe.”

Rhys passes out shortly after that. Probably from blood loss or severe trauma, he doesn’t really care why. He wants to stay in the darkness of unconsciousness forever, never wake up.

For a long time, he thinks that that is exactly what happened. There is darkness all around him, but not the black sort of darkness. It doesn’t have a colour. It _isn’t,_ because he can’t see it. As if there wasn’t any world around him anymore. And he’s not even afraid. He would happily stay in that place.

But then feeling returns to him. He can feel the soft mattress and silk sheets underneath him, and the blankets covering his body. The air in the room is the same temperature as it always is, and he doesn’t need his eye to know how the room looks.

 _His eye..._ Rhys swallows heavily on dry throat and carefully raises his hand to his face. He winces when he touches the bandages, a dull throb shooting through his skull, a mere shadow of the pain that he could be feeling if he wasn’t drugged out of his mind.

So, it happened. Jack took another thing from him, and he would keep doing so until there was nothing left. Nothing that could be hurt. He will lock the last pieces left in a titanium safe and protect them to the last breath. It is his version of love.

The CEO is not in the room. He would already be tending to Rhys for sure, or maybe giving him a speech. Explaining why what he did was right. He is probably back in his office, leaving the younger man alone for most of the day like he usually would. And as long as the drugs keep his head fuzzy and the pain away, Rhys doesn’t mind, slipping in and out of consciousness as time loses its meaning.

He knows it will be like that, from now on. The change of lighting behind the windows used to be the only way for him to tell what time of the day it is, and now he doesn’t even have that. Jack never brings him food regularly and doesn’t have a sleep schedule. Rhys will forever float in the void of the room and sometimes, there will be his _boyfriend_ next to or on top of him, and sometimes he will eat.

And then one day, Jack will take his legs away and his arm. Rhys doesn’t even humour himself with the thought of feeling his way through the penthouse, stubbornly wandering to the other rooms on his knees. He knows that sooner rather than later that will also be gone. Who knows, maybe tomorrow, if he has any strength in his limbs, he will test his luck, tempt the inevitable to come get him sooner. Or maybe he will finally be perfect, just like Jack wants him.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [my NSFW Twitter](https://twitter.com/ElfWriting) and [Tumblr](https://lostelfwriting.tumblr.com/).


End file.
